Page 136 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.”

—Agatha Christie,The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The rain started by the time I reached my cottage.

Gino was dead. My number one suspect in the murder of Diana Harden was dead.

It could have been an accident—he fell and hit his head. But the drop wasn’t far, and he’d just accused a twenty-year-old staff member of murder. If Gino was guilty, he’d successfully pinned the murder on someone else and then accidentally fell to his death? I didn’t buy that. If he wasn’t guilty... did that mean the kid had killed him? Would everyone now be looking for Georgie because he was suspected of killing two people?

I shivered, thinking about how I’d confronted the skinny young man. He hadn’t seemed dangerous; he’d been terrified.

Maybe it was an accident. People do wild things when confronted with jail. He could have pushed Gino to get away. Gino fell and hit his head. A short but deadly drop on the rocks.

None of this sat right with me, but I didn’t have any answers—and I didn’t think that Diana’s book had the answers, either.

On the desk next to my closed laptop was my dress, neatly folded, and my cell phone. A note was folded on top.

I opened it.

Mia~

Your things, as promised.

All staff is working to secure the resort before the storm. It won’t be severe, a mild tropical storm that should pass by morning. I’ll come by when I’m done.

Love, Jason

I smiled and set his card aside. My phone was nearly dead, so I plugged it into the charger. A text popped up from Brie.

I hate her! I’m coming over now.

Poor Brie. I hoped we could find something on Sherry serious enough that at least Andrew would postpone the wedding. She hadn’t killed Gino, so she probably didn’t kill Diana, either—though she was up to something.

I remembered the creepy guy she met with yesterday and the money she gave him. Maybe shewasa killer... and hired a guy to do the dirty work.

More likely Gino was hired...

I straightened. Hired by Parker Briggs because Diana had stolen documents from him? That seemed plausible, I thought. And Parker was here now, looking for the documents. Maybe Gino was supposed to get them, and when he couldn’t find them, Parker had to come to the island himself.

I wished I knew what she’d taken that might be worth killing for. I feared I’d never know, a story without an ending.

I showered, dressed, the pounding rain making me a bit nervous. Though it was only four in the afternoon, the day had darkened, and I watched sheets of rain fall straight down around my covered patio. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to leave.

Someone pounded on my door. I found Brie there, drenched.

I pulled her inside.

She looked like a lost puppy and dripped on the floor. I grabbed a couple towels from the bathroom and tossed them at her.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Sherry happened,” Brie said. “They’re getting married.”

“Right, but—”

“They’re getting marriedtomorrow.”